Must-have Apps for Nurses

The app market grows at an exponential rate each day, and there are plenty of offerings aimed at nurses, other medical professionals, and medical students. Which ones are essential for you?

On the job

Drugs.com offers a number of apps designed with the medical professional in mind. Two that are essential for nurses are:

Pill Identifier is a great app that offers visual and input identification for more than 14,000 medications. You can search by imprint, drug name, color, shape, and score. Anybody who has ever dealt with a pill tray hitting the floor can appreciate the value of this app!

Drug Reference offers vital information about dosing, drug interactions, adverse reactions, warnings and precautions. Both of these apps install directly on your phone, so you can access the information even if you have no bars…or no internet. Each app runs $39.99.

IDdx: Infectious Disease Queries is a free app that allows you to input symptoms, epidemiological information, and geographical region to identify diseases, or input a disease to check the symptoms.

Is that poison oak or something more serious? The Color Atlas of Family Medicine offers glorious Technicolor pictures of rashes, diseases, and conditions to help you sort it out. At the New Year’s Eve party, when a total stranger asks, “Can you take a look at this?” you can smile and answer, “Sure. There’s an app for that. Don’t kiss me when the ball drops, ok?” At $99 bucks, it’s a bargain.

For nursing students

Mini-Nurse – Lite is a great little reference app that offers all kinds of information every aspiring nurse needs to know. Info includes medical terminology and medical abbreviations, lung and heart sounds, IV rates, injection sites, practice questions on various nursing subjects, and a who host of other useful stuff you need to know…all for the whopping cost of $2.99. (The developers must know that med students are always broke).

Taber’s Medical Dictionary is great for sorting out difficult medical terms, but know what you’re getting into. The database is online, not stored in your phone. So no service means no program…and when your 12 months is up, it’s over, you have to subscribe again. It costs $49.99

RNotes is a handy little reference tool for nurses and students that offers detailed clinical information, and it also helps you prepare for the NCLEX by highlighting topics included on the exam. At $29.99, it’s a steal.

On the lighter side

Scrubs Magazine offers an app to cheer, encourage, inspire, and otherwise make your day a little brighter. Code Happy features nursing cartoons, quips, quotes, and other snippets of information and humor designed to lift your spirits. You can participate by adding why you’re happy today, for other nurses to see and draw inspiration from. You can even use their map feature to find facilities near you with the highest nurse happiness rating. Best of all, it’s free.

Q: How many nurses does it take to screw in a light bulb? A: None. They just have a nursing student do it.